Facebook communication

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, gave a heavily discussed (e.g., [1], [2]) interview at the SXSW Interactive conference last week. You can watch a video summary here on Austin360.com.

I haven't read and watched much interviews with Zuckerberg before, but I noticed two things. Firstly, according to Zuckerberg, Facebook isn't there to create new communities, but rather to help existing ones communicate better. I don't know why this claim stood out. After all, that's all what I use Facebook for: to communicate with people I already know. But, even though I didn't really participate in it, others have always claimed that finding and making new contacts was an essential advantage of online social networks. Well now, I'm glad it isn't. Now I can refuse friend requests from people I don't know, while knowing I have the spirit of Zuckerberg with me.

The other point I noticed stood out for opposite reasons. Zuckerberg claims that Facebook makes communication with your contacts easier, allows you to stay in touch with more people, and also enrich the contacts with those people. I admit he is right on the first two points. But our communication getting enriched? I admit, seeing people's status messages and seeing what books they are reading does provide new conversation topics. And granted, I love Facebook to stay in touch with people who live far from me. But I have had several moments where I seriously considered removing all my contacts in my city, just because I felt our relationships shallowed so much since we befriended each other on Facebook. And when I wrote that in my status message I did get some agreeing responses.

Am I right in thinking that Facebook shallows my relationship with my close friends that live around the block? Or is it just some Pavlov reaction that I, and many others, seem to have in thinking that every social activity online is just a poor and depleted substitute of the real thing?